FreeOrion

I think government, religion and similar things should all be summarised into "culture".

ie
Instead of having to choose
X government
X religion
x social

we could go
X culture <and it has those things in it as a concrete 'set'>

Well you need to have a range of player control... things like govenrment are typically more player controlled, things like religion and social are typically less player conmtrolled.

Maybe these aren't so useful in a game setting tho... but pantheism, pandeism, panentheism, and panendeism are out there (and there are others)

pantheism: God IS the universe (maybe no interaction with God, but we're all part of God)
pandeism: God made the universe and God is the universe (no interaction with God, but we're all part of God)
panentheism: God IS the universe and is also more than the universe
panendeism: God IS the universe and is also more than the universe (but no interaction with God)

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//// Pacific PanDeist

My views on religion: keep it out.

All religion does these days is start fights. If ever you discuss it with someone who has a different religion, either they respectfully stop talking about it, or they quarrel.

In the game, if every person made a different religion, then no race would be able to get along. Every race would realistically wonder why other races didn't share their views and spend half the time fighting to convert the other races to their religion. It's just not a needed factor. I myself am religious, and bringing into games where it really doesn't belong is just pointless.

The few times religion comes into Sci Fi, it's usually some psychopathic alien race that wants to wipe out all other non-believers because they can't deal with the fact that someone has a different view. When used in that sense, it makes a great plot. But I can't see how it would be useful in-game, or even how it would tie into the game.

Yes, down with religion in games. There is enough of it in real life as it is.

I have to say I agree with no game religions. I don't see any real advantage to it. And its a creative limit when devising races if it has to have a religion in one of a few set categories.

The idea sounds bad because it was approached from exactly the wrong perspective.

Instead of trying to catalog and list religious systems with fine distincions which could have no connection to gameplay...

the question should be asked, "what beliefs/goals/ideals would reasonably have an impact on game mechanics?"

Alpha Centari got this basicly right. The factions had each had ideals: science, the environment, or military might, etc. Each would attempt to excell in those areas, and would have a hard time coexisting with factions whose governmental choices were contrary to their ideals.

The reason, (religion, philosophy, pragmatism, genetic hard-wiring etc). a faction embraces certain ideals is not important to gameplay. Neither is the number and type of Beings in their pantheon. But giving them belifs and ideas makes interesting and makes diplomacy much less arbitrary.

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It might be a terrible idea, but what if every game had a pre-defined mode that is either set (for everyone to know) or random (so no-one knows). For example, let's just compare the _beliefs_ of young-Earth creationists and secular humanists (depending on your definition, they might both be religions, either might be, or neither is). Both have worldviews that makes claims about science (one saying a God of order made everything - recently - whereas the other is saying there is nothing supernatural and everything that exists does so by natural causes, and came into existacne that way).

If there is a preset mode (or age of the universe), then there would be a science bonus to a civ that picks the right one. There could be factors built into the game that change because of this, such as the amount of comets, the apparent age of stars, ruins and the development of NPC players (we'd expect an older universe to have older civs - give 'em a head start, just not too much). Those factors would also be hints of which view is correct in that universe.

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As for details on religion... if there indeed is a God as universal as any ONE GOD must be, then all civs would likely have some cultural trace of GODs interaction with that particular civ, and be able to pick that religion. It may, however, have changed over time, things been added and reformed. Just compare the Abrahamic religions and their very varying views and practices. Actually, you can compare a number of christians from different denominations and you'll end up with very varying views.

A simple tolerance slider could be good enough, and that would be influenced by so many other things.

Consider this idea: how would the planet's scientific community respond to a technologically superior civ that are radical young-Earth (or young-Generica) creationists? Would our scientists adopt their views? Would we enforce our views on them? What would happen?

We might even be invaded by crusaders from outer space, aliens with no tolerance for any view but their own. What would we do then?

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Essentially, there's the need for two meters, tolerance, and cultural diversity which would include religion. I suspect any culturally homogenous civ would suffer scientific setbacks as the one true science is academic law. On the other hand, we'd have all sorts of minor cultural clashes is diversity is too high. Every other european country has some religious, philosophical, or cultural hatred for another, not to mention the conflict between "Islamic" terrorists and the "Christian" west.

Picking a state religion would start to homogenize the civ and unpicking it would diversify the civ. Homogenous means less corrpution, diverse means faster science. There only a need for two choices but these might be different for most players, some having things in common, some not.

If Earth had a religion called CNN and Genericans of religion CBS came, they have factor C in common, and both have palced it first. A similar system could be devised, only you'd need to interact with the other civ to learn of their culture and religion/philosophy. With the C in common, they could have an easy time dealing with each other.

Naming the religions is hardly necessary, but tagging them like I did above, only with features rather than letters, could be good. Each feature could then affect the civ as a whole as well. Core values, some of which can be combined, might work.

Some suggestions:

Believe or die (war morale bonus, but makes population unrestful when populations are diverse or when at peace with civ with very different beliefs)
You're accountable after death (reduced corruption, but some medical problems (through fear of death) may arise)
Respect people (increased tolerance and morale but reduced... production, maybe? plus reduced war morale)
Sabbath (decreased production, increased health)
Recent creation (see suggestion waay way above, incompatible with All natural universe)
Wealth is key (increased trade incomes, increased corrpution)
All natural universe (see suggestion waay way above, incompatible with Recent creation)
"Human" sacrifices (increased health (getting rid of the old, and sick), decreased corrpution (yeah, let's kill the criminals while we're at it), decreased tolerance) (probably incompatible with respect ppl*)
Plus many many more

*) what if they only sacrifice volunteers?

Christianity, or whatever branch of it that I best fit into, would be: recent creation (Creation), respect people (Respect), and you're accountable after death (Accountable)... in some order. Probably ARC or ACR. If I'd make that the belief of my civ, I'd have increased tolerance and morale, possibly science as well, and reduced corrpution, but also reduced production, morale during war, and some health problems.

An alien civ with most of those on their top three priorities list would probably be a likely ally, while my civ would have trouble dealing with one that puts wealth above accountability and picks naturalism over supernaturalism. Even more so if they've got believe or die somewhere relatively high.

Maybe there could be a ranking system for these, one that measures what the ppl have, one that you set and gradually influence them to fit into. Too drastic changes would cause some unhappiness, maybe even unrest.

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The good thing about this latter idea is that it stays away from the debateable details about God, gods, the universal divine, or the lack thereof. Tangible gameplay effects, and not any whining about whose real-life religion, or lack thereof, is the ultimate truth.

I'm tempted to end this with "besides, my religion can kick your religion's intangible ass any day of the week". I'm not gonna.

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.rho

I like that basic Idea, the way i would design the 'Ethoi/Religion's is to

1. Give them that 'list of components'
2. break the components down into two factors those that did or didn't have a significant impact on gameplay

So each 'Culture' would have
1. a set of basically meaningless symbols (that identify and differentiate it)
AND
2. a set of Effects that it has (based on its level of influence on the planet)

I would definitely like Species and Culture to be two different things
Each Planet would only have 1 Species, but would have multiple Cultures
Each Culture would be of a different strength.. which determines how much it influences the planet
Culture would travel from planet to planet (most effectively if the planets shared the same Empire, the same Species)

How about this (as a social engineering addon)

Religion
Agnosticism (default at start)
State religion (+25% culture, -30% science)
Theocracy (+35% morale, +20% unit support, -60% science, no religion spread)
Free religion (+20% morale, +10% research)
Atheism (-10% police, +30% research)

Bonuses and penalties with values like "+25% culture" are meaningless at this stage. There is no "culture" in the FreeOrion design (yet), and even if there was, specific numbers (if applicable) would be determined by balancing. To be of use, discussion should be conceptual and high-level at this stage, like most of the recent posts in this thread.

Well, it could be added in at a later stage

Perhaps you need to define the other parts, eg what is culture, government, etc.

My view is that religion, from the definitions I've seen in the dictionary is actually apart of culture. Religion, culture and government all seem to try a similar thing, and so I wonder whether it is best to pick one and exclude others or wrap them all together.

Well I would exclude Government from Religion+Culture* but Religion and culture I would wrap together... (allows the debate about what qualifies as a Religion, so you don't have to worry about classifying a strict Atheistic government... they are just strongly enforcing a particular culture that Happens to be Atheistic)

*since that would be part of the point of Religion/Culture, something Seperate from Government that Government has to deal with (something the player has less control over)

The christian westworld was leading the technological development on many levels for a long period in history, in part due to the christian worldview. To assume an atheist "religion" would be superior in science is ridiculous, just like assuming a christian-ish religion by default would give a science bonus. There's a lot of other stuff involved too.

I repeat, components with different effects such as science boosts and diplomatic penalties would make it more interesting, as well as (depending on the exact nature of those effects), less anti-belief or anti-nonbelief, as players would customize their religion anyway.

I like my idea.

Also, that means that ppl who idealistically refuse to play with any "religion" other than the closest thing to his own, they would probably still have different in-game "religion"/culture components. Ppl who pick and choose the best components.

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Including government into the belief component system would be interesting. That way, the odds of any two players' governments being alike would be low. If the interactions would vary enough depending on those components, it could give diplomacy a real innovative touch.

I mean, a democratic civ with the idea that every player must be democratic... that'd be interesting, especially when faced with a more hive-minded civ of a strange democratic socialist view (aka ideal socialism). Or with a machine civ where there entire population is made up of a single multi-planet computer, with the belief that everyone in a civ must agree with each other...

What the players themselves will do I dunno, but there's poten tial for this, methinks.

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.rho